Creationists Angry About Carnival Cruise Super Bowl Ad

The Carnival Corporation released a Super Bowl ad featuring a speech by President John F. Kennedy voicing over images of the sea, igniting an evolution debate when creationists criticized the commercial.

"I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it’s because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it’s because we all came from the sea," said Kennedy in the 1962 speech. "And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea — whether it is to sail or to watch it — we are going back from whence we came."

Creationist leader Ken Ham was furious with the ad, expressing his rage on a his Around the World blog. He accused Carnival of "blatantly" using evolution in its advertising and noted how upset he was that our culture is abandoning "the truth of God's word."

"Don’t you just want to go on one of their cruises so you can stand on the deck of a big cruise ship, look at the sea, and contemplate your accidental beginnings — and perhaps worship the sea, because it gave birth to you!" wrote Ham.

He concluded his post by lamenting, "Except for the fact that it’s a spiritual issue because of our sin, it’s mind-boggling to think that intelligent people can actually believe life (and the whole universe) came about by accident! Ludicrous!"

Friendly Atheist writer Hermant Mehtadid not agree with Ham's critique. "It is indeed mind-blowing … but it makes sense after you read up on it. Ken Ham should try it sometime. Turns out you can learn a lot when your library consists of more than just a single book."

The conversation also played out on Twitter as users responded to the commercial:

#carnival cruise has enough problems without throwing evolution into the ads. Didn't come "from the sea" #JFK We came from #Adam.